Setting up BiblioRemote server

If your organization has Biblioscape users at different locations, you can set up Biblioscape in a client/server environment so remote users can access a common database through the Internet. Even if all your users are on the same Local Area Network (LAN), using BiblioRemote is still a better way to share a database then simply putting the shared database on a file server and letting end users open it directly. When opening a database through the BiblioRemote server, the end user won't see much difference. The database could be located in another city, state, even continent. Even for a single user who wants to use a common database for work and home, setting up Biblioscape with Client/Server configuration can be a good solution as well, provided you have fast Internet access at home like DSL or cable modem. Setting up Biblioscape for client/server use doesn't cost any extra money if you have less than 3 concurrent users, because the server is installed as part of Biblioscape under the folder "BiblioRemote". Under that folder, there are two executables: "dbsrvr.exe" and "srvadmin.exe". You need to have the database server "dbsrvr.exe" running first. Then run "srvadmin.exe" to do the configuration as explained in the next section.

With the BiblioRemote server running, you can let other Biblioscape users open a Biblioscape database published by BiblioRemote. The remote machine could be on your LAN or on the Internet which could be a machine in any place with broadband connection. By default, the BiblioRemote server supports 3 concurrent connections for personal use for free. If your organization needs to support more concurrent users, please order additional licenses at our web site.

Server setup

To have BiblioRemote access set up correctly, you need to have a PC designated as server which must have a permanent IP address. If you want users outside your firewall to open databases through BiblioRemote, you must open the ports used by BiblioRemote on both the server PC and client PC. The client PC must have Biblioscape installed and have Internet or Intranet access. The server PC doesn't need to have Biblioscape installed. However, we recommend you do so, because some activities such as database maintenance and record importation are much quicker to perform on the server PC locally. If your server PC doesn't have Biblioscape installed, please copy the directory "BiblioRemote" under your Biblioscape root folder to the server PC.

2.	On the server PC, run "srvadmin.exe" under the BiblioRemote folder, and go to "File | Options...".

4.

In srvadmin, go to "File | Login to Server". Enter "Admin" as User Name and "DBAdmin" as Password to login. This is the default password; please change it after the first login for security reasons. If you cannot login, please make sure the two ports used by BiblioRemote server port 12005 and 12006 are not blocked by a Windows firewall. These two ports are blocked by default in Windows Vista. Click here to learn how to open a blocked port.

5.

After logging in to the server, go to the "Users" tab. You should change the password for the Admin account instead of keeping the default password. Click the "Edit" button, and enter a new password. Please keep your new password in a secure place. Click the "Save" button to make the changes. Then, click the "Add" button to add a new user. You can also continue to use the Admin account if you wish. If you need to support more than one BiblioRemote user, you should use srvadmin to create an account on the BiblioRemote server for each user. In this example, let's create a new user and assign this user to a database. Click the "Add" button. On the right, enter the user name and type a password. Leave the "administrator" box unchecked because you do not want to let users to have the admin privilege. The user name and password will be used to create a connection file for remote Biblioscape users to open this database. You can create an account for each end user, or you can simply create one end user account and let all Biblioscape users connect to the shared database using the same account.

6.

Next, go to the "Database" tab. Before doing so, you need to ensure that there is a Biblioscape database on the server machine for the remote Biblioscape client to open. You can transfer Biblioscape databases by using WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to compress all files in the Biblioscape database folder into a zip file. Transfer the zip file to the server PC and unzip it. Once you have done this, in srvradmin's "Database" tab, click the "Add" button. First, give the database a name. You will need this name on the client PC to configure the setup; it can be anything you like (in other words, it doesn't have to have the same name as the *.bsl file in the database, although it's recommended that it does, for clarity). Click the "Select" button to point to the folder where the database files reside. Then click the "Save" button. Create one database name for each *.bsl file if you want to publish more than one database. In the next step, you can assign multiple users to a single database created in this step.

7.

Then, go to the "Database Users" tab. Select a database from the combo box first. In our case, we'll select the database "sample" we created in the last step. If you have published more than one database, you can chose which database to add a new user to. Then click the "Add" button to add users to this database. Make sure users are given the rights they need. For normal use, you should give users the right to Read, Insert, Update, and Delete. You have the flexibility to give some users only the Read privilege, so the  user cannot add, edit, or delete. Or you can just leave the "Delete" out, so the user can add and edit, but cannot delete records. Click the "Save" button to save the changes. Now you can log out from the server by going to "File | Logout from Server".

Client setup

So far we have successfully set up BiblioRemote server; now we need to go to the client PC and use Biblioscape to create a server connection file (*.bsr). The Biblioscape end users can then use the *.bsr file to open the remote database published by the BiblioRemote server.

2.

Click the "New" button, select a directory, and give a file name to the configuration file ("*.bsr"). Now you need to fill out the configuration settings. Enter the IP address of the server machine where dbsrvr.exe is running. Enter 12005 as the port number. This is the default port number used by the BiblioRemote server. This port is blocked by default in Windows Vista. Click here to learn how to open a blocked port. If you don't open this port, you cannot open the remote database. Enter the remote database name you created in step 6 of server setup. For the "Remote Type", select "LAN" if the server PC is on the same Local Area Network as the client PC. If the server PC is in another building, city, or country, please select "Internet". Enter the user name you created in step 5 of server setup or use the default Admin account. Enter the password for the account you created. In the *.bsr file, the password will be encrypted. If you enter the password in the *.bsr file, the end user will not need to enter the password when opening the *.bsr file. To be more secure, you can leave the Password field blank. However, the downside of doing this is that each time you open the remote database, you will have to enter the password manually, which can be annoying. If you have the password field entered in the *.bsr file, the remote database will be opened automatically when you open the *.bsr file. Click the "Save" button to save the configuration file.

Firewall issues

Security software such as Windows Firewall or ZoneAlarm will block all unused ports. If the ports used by BiblioRemote are blocked, you won't be able to access BiblioRemote from other computers. You will need to change the appropriate settings in your security software to unblock these ports. By default, BiblioRemote uses ports 12005 and 12006.

Running behind a router

If you run BiblioRemote on a computer behind a router and only the router has an IP open to the world, please make sure the two ports 12005 and 12006 are not blocked by the router. Also, configure your router to forward traffic on those two ports to the computer on which BiblioRemote runs. For example, if that computer's IP address is "192.168.0.3", configure the router (this is sometimes called “port forwarding”) so that it sends all traffic it receives from the Internet for ports 12005 and 12006 to "192.168.0.3".

Host name and service name

Note: This section is for advanced users who want to use the host name instead of IP address, and the service name instead of port number. In some cases, when the sever IP address and port number keep changing, it is more convenient to use the host name instead of IP address, and the service name instead of port number. The mapping between host name and IP address is controlled by the Hosts text file available from the client operating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file). You can add an entry to this file. It will allow you to refer to the server by host name instead of IP address. For example:

192.168.0.100          BiblioRemoteServer

When your remote machine IP changes, you can just update the hosts file instead of the *.bsr files. The mapping between service name and port number is also controlled by the Services text file available from the client operating system (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832017). You can add an entry to allow you to refer to the server by service name instead of port number. For example:

BiblioRemoteData             12005/tcp

BiblioRemoteAdmin           12006/tcp

Once you have added an entry to those two mapping files, you can edit your *.bsr file. Open the Biblioscape *.bsr file with a plain text editor like notePad. Add entry "RemoteHost" or "RemoteService" to the *.bsr file. You can leave the RemoteIP and RemotePort entries untouched. Because RemoteHost takes precedence over RemoteIP, RemoteService takes precedence over RemotePort. For example:

[RemoteDB]

RemoteIP=192.168.0.100

RemoteHost=BiblioRemoteServer

RemotePort=12005

RemoteService=BiblioRemoteData

RemoteUser=smithon

RemotePassword=ž‘˜š“

RemoteDatabase=sample

RemoteType=LAN

Close and save changes to the *.bsr file. The next time you open the *.brs file from Biblioscape, the RemoteHost setting will be used instead of the RemoteIP setting, and the RemoteService setting will be used instead of the RemotePort setting.